The life and times of two grad students and their baby who doesn't sleep.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Tires are not my friends

So I just had my third flat of the summer.

Yes, that is correct - three of my four tires have gone flat on me this summer.

You will all recall my earlier post about my tire going disastrously flat on the 84/384 split and trying to kill me. That was one.

Then, as Dan and I drove to Torrington earlier in August to visit the UConn Torrington campus where I am teaching, another tire went flat. This time, I could tell early. I am not a paranoid crazy person for being suspicious of every time my car starts shaking, it was indeed a flat tire. HA! Except oh, we still never got me a tire iron. So we still couldn't change the tire. :( And also we were about 40 minutes away from home and 40 minutes away from Torrington, and we would still have to drive back to Torrington, so really, I needed to get a new tire anyway.

We called AAA (That's why we pay for it, right?) The very nice tow truck driver took us to a Sears and they replaced the tire (my front driver's side), and then rotated the tires so that the two Kelly's were on the front (the old tires) and the two replacement tires (mismatched because Sears didn't have the brand we had bought at Town Fair Tire) were on the back. We eventually made it to Torrington.

So today, I taught my first class in Hartford (which went really well, yay!). On my way home, on Buckland Street as I'm coming off of the exit, what do I feel. Of course, it's my tire going flat. I am totally an expert in what it feels like to have a tire going flat now, by the way. I knew, I KNEW!

So of course there is no where to pull off to the side of the road so I pull into the Home Depot parking lot and call Dan. Because of course, I still don't have a tire iron. Dan was supposed to purchase a tire iron for me when he went to Auto Zone to get a bunch of car stuff so he could replace his brake pads. So yeah, he was like 3 minutes away obviously - and luckily had not started taking the wheels off of his car. So he drove over and brought out my new tire iron and his new hydraulic lift (which I have totally claimed to live in my trunk when not in use) and changed my tire.

We're going to replace the other Kelly tire at the same time. Clearly something is wrong with my tires. Once - well, I was probably due, I'd never had a flat before. Twice - well, that's just unlucky, an unfortunate coincidence. Three tires in less than 2 months, that means something is wrong and the 4th one is just biding time.

So yes, tires are not my friends, they do not like me, and they enjoy costing me lots of money, because of course, I can't get one of the buy three get the fourth tire free deals now, even though the result has been to replace all four tires. ::sigh::